Neapolitan (autonym: (’o n)napulitano;[citation needed]Italian: napoletano) is the language of much of southern continental Italy, including the city of Naples. It is named not after the city, but after the Kingdom of Naples, which once covered most of this area and of which Naples was the capital. On October 14, 2008 a law by the Region of Campania stated that the Neapolitan language was to be protected.[3] It has been recognized by UNESCO as a language and a heritage.[citation needed] Neapolitan has had a significant influence on the intonation of Rioplatense Spanish, of the Buenos Aires region of Argentina.[4]

Neapolitan is generally considered Italo-Dalmatian. There are notable differences among the various dialects, but they are all generally mutually intelligible. The language as a whole has often fallen victim to its status of "language without prestige"[citation needed] even if it was commonly used in the court during the kingdom of Bourbons,[6] as well as boasting a rich literary tradition (Giambattista Basile, Eduardo De Filippo, etc.).

The Italian language and Neapolitan are of variable mutual comprehensibility, depending on factors both affective and linguistic. There are notable grammatical differences such as nouns in the neuter form and unique plural formation, and historical phonological developments that often obscure the cognacy of lexical items. Its evolution has been similar to that of Italian and other Romance languages from their roots in Spoken Latin. It has also developed with a pre-Latin Oscan influence, which controversially purported to be noticeable in the pronunciation of the d sound as an r sound (rhotacism), but only when "d" is at the beginning of a word, or between two vowels (e.g.- "doje" or "duje" (two, respectively feminine and masculine form), pronounced, and often spelled, as "roje"/"ruje", vedé (to see), pronounced as "veré", and often spelled so, same for cadé/caré (to fall), and Madonna/Maronna). Some think[who?] that the rhotacism is a more recent phenomenon, though. Another purported Oscan influence (claimed by some[by whom?] to be more likely than the previous one) is historical assimilation of the consonant cluster /nd/ as /nn/, pronounced [nː] (this generally is reflected in spelling more consistently) (e.g.- "munno" ('world', compare to Italian "mondo"), "quanno" ('when', compare to Italian "quando"), etc.), along with the development of /mb/ as /mm/ (e.g.- tammuro (drum), cfr. Italian tamburo), also consistently reflected in spelling. Other effects of the Oscan substratum are postulated too, although substratum claims are highly controversial. In addition, the language was also affected by the Greek language. There have never been any successful attempts to standardize the language (e.g.- consulting three different dictionaries[citation needed], one finds three different spellings for the word for tree, arbero, arvero and àvaro).

The language has no official status within Italy and is not taught in schools. The Università Federico II in Naples offers (from 2003) courses in Campanian Dialectology at the faculty of Sociology, whose actual aim is not teaching students to speak the language, but studying its history, usage, literature and social role. There are also ongoing legislative attempts at the national level to have it recognized as an official minority language of Italy. It is however a recognized ISO 639 Joint Advisory Committee language with the language code of nap.

The Neapolitan alphabet, like the Italian alphabet, is almost the same as the English alphabet except that it consists of only 22 letters. It does not contain k,w,x, or y even though these letters might be found in some foreign words. The pronunciation guidelines that follow are based on pronunciation of American English and these values may or may not be applicable to British English.

All Romance languages are closely related. Although Neapolitan shares a high degree of its vocabulary with Italian, the official language of Italy, differences in pronunciation often make the connection unrecognizable to those without knowledge of Neapolitan. The most striking phonological difference is the Neapolitan weakening of unstressed vowels into schwa (schwa is pronounced like the a in about or the u in upon). However it is also possible (and quite common for some Neapolitans) to speak standard Italian with a "Neapolitan accent"; that is, by pronouncing un-stressed vowels as schwa but by otherwise using only entirely standard words and grammatical forms. This is not Neapolitan proper, but a mere difference in Italian pronunciation.

Therefore, while pronunciation presents the strongest barrier to comprehension, the grammar of Neapolitan is what sets it apart from Italian. In Neapolitan, for example, the gender and number of a word is expressed by a change in the accented vowel, whereas in Italian it is expressed by a change in the final vowel (e.g. luongo, longa; Italian lungo, lunga; masc. "long", fem. "long"). These and other morpho-syntactic differences distinguish the Neapolitan language from the Italian language and the Neapolitan accent.

While there are only five graphic vowels in Neapolitan, phonemically, there are seven. The vowels e and o can be either "closed" or "open" and the pronunciation is different for the two. The grave accent (à, è, ò) is used to denote open vowels, and the acute accent (é, í, ó, ú) is used to denote closed vowels. However, accent marks are not used in the actual spelling of words except when they occur on the final syllable of a word, such as Totò, arrivà, or pecché and when they appear here in other positions it is only to demonstrate where the stress, or accent, falls in some words.

when followed by e or i the pronunciation is somewhere between the g of germane and the z of azure
otherwise it is like the g in gum

h

h is always silent and is only used to differentiate words pronounced the same and otherwise spelled alike (e.g. a, ha; anno, hanno)
and after g or c to preserve the hard sound when e or i follows (e.g. ce, che; gi, ghi)

j

/j/

referred to as a semi-consonant, is pronounced like English y as in yet

l

/l/

pronounced the same as in English

m

/m/

pronounced the same as in English

n

/n/

pronounced the same as in English

p

/p/

pronounced the same as the p in English spill (not as the p in pill, which is aspirated)

q

always followed by u and pronounced the same as in English

r

/ɾ ~ r/

when between two vowels it is sounds very much like the American tt in butter but in reality it is a single tic of a trilled r
when at the beginning of a word or when preceded by or followed by another consonant, it is trilled

s

/s/,
/z/

pronounced the same as in English and just as in English it is sometimes voiced and sometimes unvoiced

The Neapolitan definite articles (corresponding to the English word "the") are La (feminine singular), Lo (masculine singular) and Li (plural for both), but in reality these forms will probably only be found in older literature (along with Lu and even El), of which there is much to be found. Modern Neapolitan uses, almost entirely, shortened forms of these articles which are:

Before a word beginning with a consonant:

Singular

Plural

Masculine

’o

’e

Feminine

’a

’e

Neuter

’o

–

These definite articles are always pronounced distinctly.

Before a word beginning with a vowel:

l’ or ll’ for both masculine and feminine; for both singular and plural.

Although both forms can be found, the ll’ form is by far the most common.

It is well to note that in Neapolitan the gender of a noun is not easily determined by the article, so other means must be used. In the case of ’o which can be either masculine singular or neuter singular (there is no neuter plural in Neapolitan), when it is neuter the initial consonant of the noun is doubled. As an example, the name of a language in Neapolitan is always neuter, so if we see ’o nnapulitano we know it refers to the Neapolitan language, whereas ’o napulitano would refer to a Neapolitan man.

Likewise, since ’e can be either masculine plural or feminine plural, when it is feminine plural, the initial consonant of the noun is doubled. As an example, let's consider ’a lista which in Neapolitan is feminine singular for "list." In the plural it becomes ’e lliste.

There can also be problems with nouns whose singular form ends in e. Since plural nouns usually end in e whether masculine or feminine, the masculine plural is often formed by orthographically changing the spelling. As an example, let's consider the word guaglione (which means "boy", or "girl" in the feminine form):

Singular

Plural

Masculine

’o guaglione

’e guagliune

Feminine

’a guagliona

’e gguaglione

More will be said about these orthographically changing nouns in the section on Neapolitan nouns.

A couple of notes about consonant doubling:

Doubling is a function of the article (and certain other words), and these same words may be seen in other contexts without the consonant doubled. More will be said about this in the section on consonant doubling.

Doubling only occurs when the consonant is followed by a vowel. If it is followed by another consonant, such as in the word spagnuolo (Spanish), no doubling occurs.

In Neapolitan there are four finite modes: indicative, subjunctive, conditional and imperative, and three non-finite modes: infinitive, gerund and participle. Each mode has an active and a passive form. The only auxiliary verbs used in the active form is "Avè" (en. "to have", it. "avere"), which contrasts with Italian in which some verbs take "essere" for their auxiliary. For example we have:

In Neapolitan, many times the initial consonant of a word is doubled. This is apparent both in written as well as spoken Neapolitan.

All feminine plural nouns, when preceded by the feminine plural definite article, ’e, or by any feminine plural adjective, will have the initial consonant doubled.

All neuter singular nouns, when preceded by the neuter singular definite article, ’o, or by a neuter singular adjective, will have the initial consonant doubled.

In addition, other words also trigger this doubling. Below is a list of words which trigger the doubling of the initial consonant of the word which follows.

Bear in mind, however, that when there is a pause after the "trigger" word, then the doubling does not occur (e.g. Tu sî gguaglione, [You are a boy] where sî is a "trigger" word causing doubling of the initial consonant in guaglione but in the phrase ’A do sî, guagliò? [Where are you from, boy?] no doubling occurs). It is also well to note that no doubling occurs when the initial consonant is followed by another consonant (e.g. ’o ttaliano [the Italian language], but ’o spagnuolo [the Spanish language], where ’o is the neuter definite article).